“Biden is dead meat out here,” Branstad told CNN Wednesday in an interview. “He is not going anywhere.”

Branstad told CNN he wasn't all too familiar with what the first-in-the-nation caucus state's Democratic voters prefer in a candidate. But he was sure that any presumed candidate associated with Washington, D.C., be it Biden or former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, would face an uphill battle in his state.

“Washington, D.C. is extremely unpopular,” the governor said. “Biden is so associated with this administration and all of its failures. He was unpopular before and he is even less popular now.”

A Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday found that just 29 percent of Iowans thought Biden would make a good president, compared with 53 percent who said Clinton would make a good chief executive.